


if you must mourn, my love (mourn with the moon and the stars up above)

by achilleus



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Heartbreak, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 23:52:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9264638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achilleus/pseuds/achilleus
Summary: He feels the loss hit him. The could-have-beens and almost-had-beens overwhelms him in the moment, and the grief that seems to collapse his lungs and heart presses down heavily upon his body."If only we had more time," he thinks. "I could have loved you. I could have spent the rest of my life with you. I should have been able to spend the rest of my life with you."He swallows the desperate words before they can drop like meteorites from his lips, and comforts himself by clutching tightly onto Bodhi’s hand.Bodhi clenches back just as tightly, and Cassian can see his own thoughts reflected back in those large, beautiful orbs.(Somehow, that breaks his heart even more.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a headcanon I sent to someone on tumblr before it took a life of its own. It's 4:36 AM right now, and I've spent about four hours on this. I hope you all enjoy!!
> 
> The title is from Keaton Henson's beautiful song, "You".

The _almost_ hangs precariously on the air the moment Cassian lays his eyes on the rumpled figure taking up space in the cell beside his.  
  
Dirtied, confused, barely-coherent, lost and so unknown, Cassian immediately felt a shift inside his being at the sight of the other; the tectonic plates that made up his hardened skin and bones slid ever so slightly against each other. It was something so tiny and miniscule, that it would have very easily been missed, if it wasn’t for Cassian’s obsessive knowledge of his own being.  
  
It was miniscule enough, however, for Cassian to easily shift the responsibility of the pilot ( _of Bodhi Rook_ , his mind whispered against the jumbled priorities dashing around Cassian’s brain and controlling his movements) to Baze and Chirrut. However, as he ran towards where Jyn had been taken, he couldn’t help but count the steps leading him away from the other.  
  
It was a sharp tangible relief that permeated the air as their ship made it out of orbit. Debris coated the ship and its occupants, and when Cassian finally allowed his eyes to settle on Rook, he could barely see past the grime sticking to the other man like a second skin (he understood the dirt in a way).  
  
The pilot’s eyes, however, stood in stark contrast against the filth painted over his lanky frame. They were brown, warm, confused and terrified, but so so _so_ alive.  
  
Cassian allows himself to relax.  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
“You should rest for a bit,” Cassian says, settling easily enough beside Rook. He effectively cuts off the suspicious glare being shot their way by Baze and takes in the way the other’s body draws tauter at his mere presence, like a band stretched too tight between careless fingers.  
  
“We still have a while to go before we reach Eadu,” Cassian continues. The pilot blinks dazedly at him in return, each languid pull of his eyelids causing a strengthening of the gravitational pull that apparently tethered the two of them together. Cassian finds himself shifting closer and closer to the other, settling into the orbit laying protectively around the willowy man, both thrilled and terrified of the instantaneous comfort he found in the startlingly unknown territory.  
  
“Hello,” Rook replies quite suddenly. His brows pull together and wrinkles appear quite suddenly upon his forehead, awakened by the slight scrunch his face moulds itself into. Cassian finds himself hopelessly charmed by the other’s easy display of expressiveness and an incessant need to capture this simplicity strikes him quickly in the tender spots hidden beneath the shielding of his ribs.  
  
“I don’t really remember your name, that is, if you gave me one. Which I’ve also forgotten if you had,” Rook finishes awkwardly. His long, slender and nimble fingers grab at the goggles resting like a king upon the crown of his head, and they begin an elaborate dance upon its plastic surface.  
  
“I’m Captain Cassian Andor,” Cassian murmurs gently, “you can call me Cassian.”  
  
“Cassian,” Rook rolls the name between his tongue, and Cassian can almost fool himself into believing the carefulness that Rook apparently displays in everything (even in the simple uttering of his name) is actually affection.  
  
(He isn’t a fool however. He knows better.)  
  
“Cassian, Cassian, Cassian, Cassian,” Rook repeats again and again and again. The different inflection placed upon each repetition left its mark on Cassian, and he finds himself smiling at the other.  
  
“That’s my name,” he teases softly.  
  
“I’m the pilot. I’m Bodhi Rook,” Rook offers a tremulous smile back. He gives up his name hesitantly, as if it had been used against him before, and the brief waltz his fingers performs upon his goggles turns into a much more frantic display.  
  
“Bodhi Rook,” Cassian repeats back, decorating and hiding the reverence with an ease accumulated from years and years of a practiced front in both amiability and in cruelty.  


“It’s nice to meet you, Rook,” Cassian offers his hand out. Rook looks down at it, before his eyes flit back up to Cassian’s with a hesitant shyness both befitting and yet not, of a pilot brave enough to defect the Empire. A few seconds stretch between the two before Rook lifts his own hand and places it in Cassian’s.  
  
“I prefer Bodhi,” he states with a quiet confidence belying his own nerves.  
  
“Bodhi then,” Cassian says, his fingers loosening their grip on the other’s, dropping off one by one like falling snowflakes desperate to cling onto heavy lashes. “You really should take a nap though; we need you to be fully awake when we enter Eadu’s orbit.”  
  
Bodhi’s eyes flicker back down, and it’s oddly disconcerting to no longer be holding the pilot’s eyes. Cassian carefully watches as the other bites his lip in nervous anticipation and he can’t help but begin to memorize the contours of the other’s face.  
  
“I’ll try,” Bodhi finally responds.  
  
Cassian pushes himself up, tearing away from Bodhi’s easy orbit with a gentle, “You’re okay.”  
  
He turns away before he can fully see the expression blossoming on Bodhi’s face. The slopes and curves of the other’s countenance was seared into Cassian’s mind, and he found himself missing the oddly comfortable ease in which he and Bodhi managed to weave between each other. It was surprisingly difficult to walk away from the other.  
  
(Unbeknownst to him, mountains begin to flower beneath the surface of his skin in order to create perfect crevices in which Bodhi’s own curves can fit and rest.)  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
(The thing was, Cassian had always been alone. For as long as he could remember, he had been alone. He was constantly surrounded by people, but he had always been detached in a way that sometimes made fighting in the war more difficult (because really, it was a lot more difficult to fight for a concept rather than for something more tangible).  
  
He sometimes fancied himself an island, distanced, but still close enough to not be considered in complete desolation. Bodhi, however, was a ship. Drawn off-course (but also not), and pulled down to somehow crash onto the quiet shores of Cassian’s very being.  
  
It was sudden, and it was shocking, and it probably really shouldn’t have been done (how can someone be so affected only after one meeting?), but the crater left behind by Bodhi’s fall stayed.  
  
  
  
Cassian couldn’t help but wish that Bodhi had stayed too.)  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
“…are you okay?” Bodhi’s gentle cadence runs smoothly down the tense lines of Cassian’s back, and the captain finds himself thawing in the soft sunlight that seems to cling to Bodhi.  
  
He turns to look at the pilot and shrugs in response, just a careless lifting and dropping of tired, burdened shoulders and the worried frown that pulls down Bodhi’s lips makes Cassian wish he could take away his own exhaustion if it meant keeping that expression from ever marring the other man’s face again.  
  
“I’ve been better,” Cassian says in a tired attempt to lift the heavy mood encapsulating the two of them.  
  
“I can imagine,” Bodhi responds in turn, and Cassian finds himself eased back into the comforting tides of their easy-going chemistry as the other settles beside him, close enough that their body heat seems to mingle between the parallel lines of their aligned bodies.  
  
“You can’t understand everyone,” is what Bodhi says after a few moments. Jyn’s words still bounced around the caverns of Cassian’s head, but their sharpened edges seemed dulled in the presence of the pilot resting beside him.  
  
“I don’t want to,” Cassian says.  
  
Bodhi blinks inquisitive eyes at him, and Cassian smiles half-brokenly.  
  
“There’s too many people in this galaxy for me to want to understand everybody. I think understanding one or two is enough.”  
  
Bodhi’s fingers begin grappling with the straps of his goggles. His eyes flicker down onto his own lap, where the wrestling match between his fingers and goggles begin to commence. He whispers, “I was from Jedha City, you know?”  
  
Cassian just listens.  
  
“My…I really had no choice but to work for the Empire. It was either that or starve, and it was either work in the mines and barely scrape by, or help the Empire out in some other way and manage to live for…for another day. It made sense at the time, but,” Bodhi sucked in a tremulous breath. “But after some time of stripping my own planet of its resources for the Empire, I couldn’t really bear to look at myself anymore. I couldn’t…couldn’t even bear to hear my own thoughts anymore. I was so…disgusted. With what I’d done. So really, it was easy to defect.”  
  
Bodhi’s fingers were trembling like thin bramble branches hanging delicately through the shocks of an unexpected earthquake. He curls into himself, hunching over as if the thin column of his spine can shield him from the heartbreaks of the world, and Cassian finds himself wanting to hopelessly protect this man.  
  
“I can’t help but think that…the Empire specifically chose to shoot at Jedha because of my defection. I…what if I’m the reason that…that my entire city is gone? I did that, it was me.”  
  
Bodhi’s chin weakly wobbles, looking exhausted in its mission to uphold the slow crumbling of Bodhi’s face. His brows furrowed, causing tiny craters to form between the two; his eyes drooped, heavy from having to keep his eyes opened to witness the casualties of this war; his lips pulled down, trembling and tired and so lost.  
  
(Cassian wants to protect him, so much.)  


He reaches out instead, and lays a steady hand on one of Bodhi’s trembling ones. It was easy then, to find the spaces between the pilot’s hands and to slip his own fingers into the nooks and crannies that make up the other’s appendage. There was a quiet beauty in the intertwining of their fingers, and Cassian finds a sorrow-tinged sense of joy in the physical manifestation of the tethering of the two of them. It was strange, but pleasant. The clamminess of Bodhi’s hand simply made it all the more real and Cassian somehow wanted to remain attached to the other for a long, long while.  
  
The wet and laboured breathing of Bodhi quiets out after a few minutes, and Cassian simply continues to rub his calloused thumb against the smooth softness of Bodhi’s tanned skin.  
  
Once silence blankets the two of them once more, Cassian gathers the fraying edges of himself to quietly say: “People with bad intentions don’t need an excuse to carry out those intentions.”  
  
Bodhi’s thumb bumps clumsily against Cassian’s, and he whispers confidently, “You’re not a bad person.”  
  
“You don’t know that,” Cassian replies simply, though his thumb never stops tracing circular patterns into the thin flesh of Bodhi’s hand.  
  
“I’d like to,” is all the other says.  
  
After a few more minutes, Cassian releases Bodhi’s fingers from his own grasp. Their pinkies stay intertwined for a moment longer in an affectionate resemblance of a childlike innocence neither shared anymore, before the captain’s tiny finger finally falls off the gentle hook of the pilot’s. Cassian is glad to see that Bodhi’s fingers were no longer trembling.  
  
When he looks up, Bodhi’s big, expressive eyes are already trained onto his face. Cassian quirks up an eyebrow in question, and Bodhi offers up a tender curving of his lips.  
  
“Now you know,” he says, and Cassian raises his other brow. Bodhi’s face softens up even further (Cassian hadn’t even known that such a soft look could ever be possible) and he elaborates with a nonchalant: “Now you understand me.”  
  
(Cassian wants to laugh, and reply with: “I only understand you a bit better now, but I would love to listen and to learn everything there is about you.”)  
  
Instead he teasingly responds, “That’s very kind of you.”  
  
“It’s not completely for you,” Bodhi teases back. “I’m not that selfless. It was for myself too, you know?”  
  
“How so?”  
  
The mirthful look on Bodhi’s face eases out into something much more kind and genuine.  
  
“If you understand me, I’m a bit less alone.”  
  
(Cassian wants to say: “I’ve barely scratched the surface. Please let me learn more about you.”)  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
Cassian only dreams about Bodhi once.  
  
(It’s the only opportunity he gets.)  
  
His dream seems to be moulded from a childish wonder and innocence that had been absent from his life even before he exited his childhood years. They lay together in a bed heaped high with towers created from piles and piles of colourful blankets, and there, in the cocoon of duvets and their intertwined limbs, they found comfort.  
  
“What were you like as a child?” Bodhi wonders aloud and Cassian can’t help the shiver that ripples through his body when the pilot’s fingers begin tracing lovely patterns on the muscles of his arms and the delicate skin protecting his heart from the rest of the world.  
  
In his dream, Cassian is honest, and he simply says, “Lonely. Angry. Scared.”  
  
Bodhi’s fingers find the sharp edges of his jaw, and he rests his slender body atop the captain’s. Cassian finds something endearingly comforting about the pilot’s weight settling heavily on top of him, and he breathes out, letting his breath carry his contentment.  
  
The loose strands of Bodhi’s hair shifts from the long huff of air Cassian releases, and he hides his smile in the slope of Cassian’s shoulder.  
  
“I was really lonely too.” Bodhi’s voice is muffled, and Cassian can somehow feel the shape of the words against his shoulder more than he could hear it.  
  
“Maybe we would’ve been less lonely if we had each other,” Cassian says. Bodhi hums and allows his fingers to tangle in Cassian’s ruffled hair.  
  
“We have each other now,” Bodhi says as he affectionately tugs on Cassian’s brown locks. His fingers in his hair and his body pressing him into the cloudy softness of the mattress keeps Cassian grounded, and for once in his life, he doesn’t feel the need to fly off into space, to move, to keep going. He’s at peace here.  
  
“I’m glad I found you,” is all Cassian can say.  
  
“Me too,” is Bodhi’s simple response. He sounds happy, content, and warm. Cassian wants to see his face though, he wants to soak all of Bodhi’s expressions in, most of all his carefree ones.  
  
Bodhi’s just beginning to look up (Cassian can just barely make out the curve of his eyes, the upward slant of his lips and the little dimples forming in the soft flesh of his cheeks) when he wakes up.  
  
Cassian wakes up with their ship landing on Yavin. Bodhi isn’t beside him, and Cassian finds himself irrationally missing something that was never his to begin with.  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
(Somewhere out there, a young Cassian who could be no older than seven or eight, picks up a jagged rock, big enough that it threatened to overwhelm his stocky, chubby fingers. Anger thrums like hot lava in his veins, and he felt frustration and fear well up as tears in his eyes.  
  
Just as he was about to lob the stone at an enemy that had yet to take a proper form in his young mind, a hand with long, graceful fingers reaches out and covers Cassian’s lonely digits. The rock falls uselessly on the ground.  
  
The young boy looks up to see a man crouching in front of him. His clothing is dirty, and his long hair looked unkempt, but to Cassian – who had only ever seen violence and anger – the stranger’s gentle eyes felt like a homecoming and his compassionate smile was the most beautiful thing the young child had ever seen.  
  
“You’ll be okay,” the stranger says, and Cassian, who as a child was already wary of false proclamations and promises, immediately believes him.  
  
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” the man continues, “and I wish I could be here with you, because you should’ve never had to feel alone. But I can’t, and I’m so sorry Cassian.”  
  
“Why can’t you?” Cassian demands, and his stubby little fingers clutch frantically to the stranger’s. He doesn’t know the other man, he doesn’t even know his name, but somehow he knew he wanted to spend the rest of forever beside him.  
  
“Because we’re going to meet later on, when you’re older,” the man replies. “You’re going to save me, and I’m going to save you.” Here, the stranger shoots Cassian a charming impish grin. “You just don’t know it yet.”  
  
“Why can’t we save each other now?”  
  
“Well, we need to have something to look forward to, don’t we?” The man responds gently, and his face softens into something so reminiscent of _home_ and _comfort_ , that Cassian wants to cry.  
  
“You promise we’ll meet?”  
  
“Cassian,” the man says solemnly, “not even the Force could prevent me from meeting you.”  
  
Cassian breathes in deeply and learns to be brave.  
  
“Okay.”)  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
Cassian’s whole world moves quickly, in alarming speeds that constantly threaten to overwhelm him and leave him behind. That’s the truth with war though; things happen and all you can do is attempt to work with any given situation at hand.  
  
The franticness that comes with pulling off an unauthorized mission to Scarif in order to steal the Death Star plans, however, causes a new wave of panic and uncertainty to flash through Cassian’s well-trained nerves, and he finds himself sitting quietly alone in the hangar during the few minutes it takes for everyone else to get ready.  
  
Somehow, he is unsurprised by Bodhi’s ability to locate him even when he didn’t necessarily want to be found, and though he would usually feel irritation for being interrupted during a moment of self-peace and contemplation, he feels only relief when the other man settles beside him.  
  
( _He’s still alive_ , Cassian thinks fervently, _he’s still here._ )  
  
“Hi,” Bodhi says. His voice is thin and his eyes are fearful. His fingers, however, refrain from grabbing his goggles. Instead, they reach out for Cassian’s own digits slowly, and Cassian meets the other’s hand halfway.  
  
“Hello,” Cassian says, once their fingers are comfortably woven together.  
  
“I’ve never actually seen combat up close before. Well, at least not to the scale that it will be.” Bodhi confesses, looking shameful of his lack of experience, and terrified in equal measures of the fact that soon that will change.  
  
“I wish you wouldn’t have to.” Cassian finds it easy to be honest when faced with the very real possibility of death. Bodhi stares at him, and Cassian stares back, not wanting to break the moment between them, and wanting to memorize every detail of Bodhi’s face – from the soft lilt of his mouth, to the gentle curve of his nose, to the sharp cheekbones that push against beautiful brown skin, to expressive eyes that Cassian wants to spend the time he knows he doesn’t have memorizing, and learning, and loving.  
  
He feels the loss hit him. The _could-have-beens_ and _almost-had-beens_ overwhelms him in the moment, and the grief that seems to collapse his lungs and heart presses down heavily upon his body.  
  
_If only we had more time_ , he thinks. _I could have loved you. I could have spent the rest of my life with you. I should have been able to spend the rest of my life with you_.  
  
He swallows the desperate words before they could drop like meteorites from his lips, and comforts himself by clutching tightly onto Bodhi’s hand.  
  
Bodhi clenches back just as tightly, and Cassian can see his own thoughts reflected back in those large, beautiful orbs.  
  
(Somehow, that breaks his heart even more.)  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
There’s no time to say goodbye once they land on Scarif. Cassian compartmentalizes his mission from his personal feelings and attachments (he’s good at it, though he had been better before… _before_ ) and he tackles his duty with a narrow-minded fervor.  
  
_If he does this, if he does this, another Cassian Andor and another Bodhi Rook out there could have the happily-ever-after he was robbed of before they had ever even met_.  
  
He refrains from contacting Bodhi because of his sense of duty and because he selfishly doesn’t want to know. If he doesn’t know, he can pretend. And if he can pretend, then he can keep going. And if he can keep going, then he could save the lives of millions out there. He bore his armour of duty upon his weathered frame, and kept going.    
  
Everything was a blur, but the pain of broken bones and bruised flesh felt like nothing in the face of the ticking time bomb looming above their heads.  
  
When their mission is done and Cassian is clutching painfully to Jyn, he can feel only the briefest pangs of relief before the tsunami of fear and grief assault him.  
  
“I could’ve loved you if we had more time,” Cassian whispers into the gentle slope of Bodhi’s shoulder. This time, he’s resting on top of the other, and he enjoys this feeling of being able to blanket the other man, of being able to be the other’s shield against the horrors and casualties of the universe.  
  
He reverently traces the stars dotting the pilot’s back (the ones he never got the chance to learn), drawing constellations from starting points to ending ones on the dewy skin. His fingers press lovingly against the soft flesh of the other, and he closes his eyes, enjoying the warmth and the sense of life thrumming beneath the pads of his fingers.    
  
“If only we had more time,” Cassian whispers once more. He opens his eyes just as he feels Bodhi shifting around to face him. But, before Cassian can see his expression, the pilot fades from his arms.  
  
Jyn takes Bodhi’s place in Cassian’s arms instead. The soft curves of her body don’t fit with the crevices he had created in his own being to perfectly fit against Bodhi’s, but he clutches her nonetheless as the end of the world quickly approaches.  
  
He closes his eyes, and imagines that somewhere out there, amongst the scattering of billions of stars, there’s a Cassian Andor and a Bodhi Rook that had met under more forgiving circumstances. That had been given the chance to build something for themselves. That had the time to actually learn to love each other and had the opportunity to see that love through. He smiles when he thinks about it.  
  
When the flash finally hits him, all Cassian can feel is relief. _  
  
_

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction for a while, so I apologize if this fic isn't up to par. Feedback would be awesome!!
> 
> Also, I'm a rather casual Star Wars fan, but Rogue One hit me in such a surprisingly hard way, that I knew I had to write something for this fandom. Everything I've written here was based on what I understood from the movie, and any other lore I've picked up via posts on tumblr or wiki. If anything is incorrect, please tell me!!


End file.
